Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Fall is here!

Actually, it's about finished. What a beautiful area! We actually stay fairly busy at the sites here in the fall. There are a number of tour buses which bring loads of tourists to the area just to see the fall leaves. We're not surprised! It is quite stunning, as you can see!

We also have quite a few Amish folks living in the area. Amish are of German descent and speak both English and German. But being several generations removed from Germany, their German seems to have changed a bit. I spoke something fairly simple in German to a couple of the children but they had no idea what I said. Not that my German would be anything to brag about!

It is really interesting to see them as they plow their fields and work their farms with only horse power to do it. It's amazing what they are able to do!

We learned a lot more about them recently when we all had an Amish dinner at the Miller family farm -- Amish farm, that is. The Miller's are Amish and run a window making business in a large building behind their home. They simply moved all of the equipment aside, setup tables and fed about 50 of us!

The Amish hold church services from 9:00 am 'til about noon, every other Sunday. They have about 200 in attendance, on average, and they take turns meeting in members homes. In the case of the Millers, church would be held in their shop.

After church, they (the hosting family) feed all who attend. Yup, all 200 of 'em! But it does get spread around over time!

They also run their own school system -- by agreement with the State. Their children attend grades one through eight and then graduate. And we were told that they receive almost the same education as our children do, in twelve years of schooling.

We don't have any pictures of the Miller family; they do not generally believe in pictures. They feel it would increase the likelihood of vanity. So, we readily agreed and didn't take any pictures of them.

The food was really good and we had an enjoyable time.

This is the kind of scenery we drive through to get to the historic sites every day. The leaves are extraordinary, as you can see. In Utah, to see something even close to this, we have to take a nice trip through the mountains. They can't here. They don't have any mountains!

But, we haven't had snow yet, like Utah has!

Don't you wish you were here? Come on up!! We have two weeks left! We'll take you on tour!

Oh, yeah. We will be heading for home in about two and half weeks. We've enjoyed it here but it will be really nice to be back in our home where we can where we have to get out of our dinning room chair in order to reach things like the stove, the cabinets, the sink, etc.!